Imaging methods show improvement in Alzheimer's research

Prior to resent studies, diagnosing Alzheimer's was only done postmortem through an autopsy. After years researchers were able to find patterns with the tau, which form tangles within the neurons and Amylyoid-β, a plaque that forms around the nerve cell. They found that we have good tau and toxic tau and when in the presence of Amylyoid-β, levels of toxicity increase. Because of these postmortem studies we know that the presence of these two are related to the symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease and only recently have been able to use these findings to observe the protein in living patients. Michael Schöll and his group had two goals, to find a way to monitor living patients during treatment and to be able to properly diagnose the disease. In this study they use imaging methods such as MRI and PET scans to look for tau and Amylyoid-β using a tag for the molecule that is labelled with an isotope they call 18F-AV-1451.